AMD Radeon 780M vs NVIDIA Tesla K40c Comparison

The AMD Radeon 780M and NVIDIA Tesla K40c represent two entirely different eras and purposes in GPU design. The 780M is a modern integrated graphics processor (IGP) built for efficiency, while the K40c is a legacy compute accelerator designed for raw throughput in professional data centers. Benchmark data shows they land in the same performance percentile, but their strengths are not interchangeable. The 780M wins the only shared benchmark, yet the K40c offers capabilities that the 780M simply does not have.

Where Each One Wins

AMD Radeon 780M: The data gives the 780M a clear victory in the single head-to-head benchmark available. In Geekbench OpenCL, the 780M scores 18,602 against the K40c’s 17,468, a 6.5% advantage. This is the only benchmark where both GPUs appear, making the 780M the outright winner in direct comparison. Beyond that, the 780M has a broader benchmark portfolio, including a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 480 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 33,683. The K40c has no Vulkan score and no modern DX12 test result, meaning the 780M is the only one of the two with any evidence of performance in contemporary graphics APIs. Its average benchmark score of 17,588 also slightly edges out the K40c’s 17,468.

NVIDIA Tesla K40c: The K40c wins in areas that are not measured by the shared benchmark. It has a massive 12 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The 780M uses system-shared memory with bandwidth that is "System Dependent," which means its memory performance is entirely tied to the host system's RAM. The K40c also has 2,880 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, which are far higher counts than the 780M’s 768 shaders, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. This suggests the K40c is built for compute workloads that scale with raw shader count, even if its older architecture is less efficient per clock.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Radeon 780M has an average benchmark score of 17,588, while the NVIDIA Tesla K40c sits at 17,468. The 780M leads by roughly 0.7%, based on the deltaPct of -0.7 when comparing the K40c to the 780M.

Q: Is the 780M faster than the K40c in OpenCL?

A: Yes. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the 780M scores 18,602 versus the K40c’s 17,468, giving the 780M a 6.5% lead. This is the only benchmark where both GPUs have a direct score.

Q: Which GPU has more memory?

A: The NVIDIA Tesla K40c has 12 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory. The AMD Radeon 780M uses system-shared memory, meaning its memory size and type are not fixed but dependent on the host system.

Q: Does the K40c support modern graphics APIs like Vulkan 1.4?

A: No. The K40c supports Vulkan 1.2.175 and DirectX 12 (11_0). The 780M supports Vulkan 1.4 and DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which is a more modern feature set.

Q: What is the power consumption difference?

A: The 780M has a TDP of 15 W, while the K40c has a TDP of 245 W. The K40c also requires a 6-pin and an 8-pin power connector and a suggested 550 W PSU, whereas the 780M is an IGP with no power connectors.

Q: Which GPU is newer?

A: The AMD Radeon 780M was released on 2024-01-30, while the NVIDIA Tesla K40c was released on 2013-10-07. The 780M is over a decade newer and is still in active production, while the K40c is end-of-life.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is Geekbench OpenCL. The AMD Radeon 780M scores 18,602, and the NVIDIA Tesla K40c scores 17,468. This gives the 780M a 6.5% advantage, a meaningful margin in raw compute performance. This is a significant result because the K40c has nearly four times the shading units (2,880 vs. 768) and over five times the TMUs (240 vs. 48), yet it still loses to the dramatically smaller and more efficient 780M in this workload. The 780M’s advantage likely comes from its much higher clock speeds: its boost clock is 2900 MHz versus the K40c’s 876 MHz, and its FP32 throughput is 8.909 TFLOPS versus 5.046 TFLOPS. The data shows that the 780M’s modern RDNA 3.0 architecture is vastly more efficient per transistor and per watt, allowing it to outperform the older Kepler design despite having far fewer hardware resources.

The K40c does not have a Geekbench Vulkan score, nor does it have a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score. The 780M scores 33,683 in Vulkan and 480 in 3DMark Steel Nomad, which are the only results for those tests in this comparison. While these cannot be directly compared to the K40c, they indicate that the 780M is capable of running modern graphics workloads, while the K40c has no data to suggest it can handle them at all.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in almost every measurable specification. The 780M is built on a 4 nm process at TSMC, packing 25,390 million transistors into a 178 mm² die. The K40c uses a 28 nm process, also at TSMC, with 7,080 million transistors on a much larger 561 mm² die. This makes the 780M’s transistor density 142.6M / mm², over ten times higher than the K40c’s 12.6M / mm².

Clock speeds are drastically different. The 780M runs at a base of 800 MHz and boosts to 2900 MHz. The K40c runs at 745 MHz base and 876 MHz boost. Memory configuration is also divergent: the 780M uses system-shared memory with a system-dependent bandwidth, while the K40c has 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus with 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The 780M has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the K40c has 2,880 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The 780M includes 12 ray tracing cores, which the K40c lacks entirely.

Power and physical requirements differ hugely. The 780M is an IGP with a 15 W TDP, no power connectors, and no dedicated slot width. The K40c is a dual-slot card that is 267 mm long, has a 245 W TDP, requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector, and suggests a 550 W PSU. The bus interface also differs: the 780M uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the K40c uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The K40c has no display outputs, while the 780M’s outputs are motherboard dependent.

Architecture Differences

The AMD Radeon 780M is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, specifically from the Navi III IGP generation, using the Phoenix chip. It is a 4 nm part fabricated by TSMC, with a transistor count of 25,390 million. The architecture supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. It includes 12 ray tracing cores, which is a feature entirely absent from the K40c. The 780M also has a 1:1 FP16 to FP32 ratio, with both at 8.909 TFLOPS, making it suitable for workloads that use reduced precision.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40c is based on the Kepler architecture, using the GK180 chip, and belongs to the Tesla Kepler (Kxx) generation. It is a 28 nm part, also fabricated by TSMC, with 7,080 million transistors on a 561 mm² die. The K40c supports DirectX 12 (11_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175, but it has no ray tracing cores and no FP16 support listed. Its FP32 throughput is 5.046 TFLOPS. The K40c was designed for compute tasks like scientific simulation and deep learning in its era, with a focus on raw shader count and memory bandwidth rather than modern graphics features. The 780M, by contrast, is a modern IGP designed for integrated graphics in portable devices, prioritizing efficiency and feature support over raw compute density.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear choice depending on the use case. For anyone building a system with integrated graphics, the AMD Radeon 780M is the superior performer. It wins the only head-to-head benchmark by 6.5%, has a higher average score (17,588 vs. 17,468), and supports modern APIs like Vulkan 1.4 and DirectX 12 Ultimate. It also uses a fraction of the power at 15 W versus 245 W, and it includes ray tracing cores. The 780M’s 8.909 TFLOPS of FP32 performance exceeds the K40c’s 5.046 TFLOPS, making it faster in compute despite having fewer shaders.

The NVIDIA Tesla K40c is not a viable choice for modern graphics workloads, as it has no Vulkan benchmark score, no DX12 test result, and no display outputs. However, its 12 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory with 288.4 GB/s of bandwidth is a resource the 780M cannot match, since the 780M relies on system-shared memory. For legacy compute tasks that require large memory buffers and high bandwidth, the K40c could still have a role, but its end-of-life status and lack of modern API support limit its relevance. The 780M is the more balanced, future-proof option based on all available benchmark data.